Mile 5, Horse Butte 10 Miler, Photo: SuperFit Productions
I’m finally getting around to this post, a week late. Will have The Rumble 60k report up soon. Horse Butte has become an annual event for me to go do. Love this race FootZone and Super Dave at SuperFit Productions puts on. Great scene, fun time and always good beer and Oregon Country Beef hot dogs at the finish line. This year it was 1 week prior to The Rumble 60k and I was unsure of how hard I should run it at first. Then, after some thought and looking at the solid mileage I’ve been putting in…plus the fact the Rod called me on Thursday and asked me if I was going to go “sub-Bien” (his time was 1:04:12 and I ran 1:04:41 last year). He likes to razz me that I just missed his time. So, after the gauntlet was thrown down, I decided to do a short taper for the Rumble and run Horse Butte hard in hopes of going “sub-Bien” and getting bragging rights. 🙂
To top it off, I decided to bike to and from the race in 20-something degree weather (with a dusting of snow on the ground), the bike to the start is 12 miles one way. So, 12 mile ride, 10 mile trail race, 12 mile ride home. I went out in 5th place behind Josh Nordell and moved into 4th by mile 2 and settled into a comfortably hard pace. This course basically climbs the first 5 miles and descends the last 5 (with some small climbs in the last 2 miles). I came through halfway in 34 minutes and felt pretty good. I ended up running in “no man’s land” with no one really breathing down my neck and not being able to close the gap on Paul Parsons in 3rd. So, I just stayed locked into 4th running against the clock. I came into the last trail intersection knowing I had Rod’s old time and ended up running exactly a minute faster for a PR and 1:04:12. To my surprise I was able to run my last mile as my fastest in 5:45. Good tempo training day. I hung out, ate a couple of dogs, drank a small cup of beer and pedaled home for a solid 3 hour workout. Love this race. Thanks Super Dave and the crew.